Our energy situation - and how to fix it.

Sustainability is the biggest crisis facing America today.

Dear Future President,

When many people see the word “sustainability,” one thought passes through their mind - why? The prevailing mindset of waiting for the problem to be solved is dangerous to the environment and to the people believing it. Actually, NASA states that February of 2016 was the unusually warmest month on record by a huge margin. This, and some other reasons, are why I believe the biggest crisis facing America today is sustainability.

The world needs to know about global warming - it's real and it's dangerous. The world has heated up in the past hundred years the same amount as it had between then and the Ice Age - 22,000 years ago. That’s an enormous amount of energy being put into our atmosphere. For humanity alone to make these kinds of repercussions on the world is crazy when it’s given a closer look. In the past hundred years, humans have reduced death rates for disease by one hundred fold, quintupled our population, raised living standards by a huge amount - with all this progress, it’s no wonder we caused such a catastrophe for ourselves.

Clean energy is something everyone knows about, but for most, it's too costly a solution for everyday life, right? In fact, we already have one relatively “clean” energy source providing a huge amount of power all across the world. Nuclear energy is safe, has few repercussions, and has huge efficiency. A few failures have occurred across the world, and in response the world has amped up its security and safety regarding its power plants, making these failures even more rare. I believe the first step to reducing climate change is to increase nuclear production. This would improve power generation, improving the U.S. economy greatly. As fossil fuel powered machines go out of fashion, electric ones will take their place.

Some may argue that a total clean energy switch is impossible, or that global warming is fake - just look at the facts. Already, we’re one Ice Age ahead of 100 years ago, and almost half of our country’s power comes from nuclear options. We’re being forced to switch, and fast. At this point...

#2nextprez

Letters to the Next President 2.0 engaged and connected young people, aged 13-18, as they researched, wrote, and made media to voice their opinions on issues that mattered to them in the 2016 Presidential Election.

STAY UPDATED

Sign up to receive information and resources that support participation in this project.